Rambling Thoughts
by HazardousProxy
Summary: Some 40-odd years in to the future. Hiei rambles. The gang breaks up. First fic. Profane Language.


AN: I used to think I was good at writing and be bad. Then I thought I was really good at writing, and maybe I was a bit, because I could pop out stories like no one's business.Then I stopped writing, and now it sounds awkward, and I don't think it flows at all. But it doesn't matter, because no one reads Yu Yu Hakusho anymore…

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. I do not own the writing skills to make Yu Yu Hakusho characters IC. I own four dead cats, so sue if your jealous of them :3

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**Rambling Thoughts**

Today was the day Yusuke Urameshi would die. Hiei knew, but he doubted anyone else would remember. Kurama might; although the fox demon wouldn't give it a second thought if he did. The red-head hadn't made contact since his Human had died. Damned Shiori.

Mukuro's general had long since given up waiting at her fortress for her to keel over dead. He had spent the last decade wandering her realms instead. Even if it gave him no purpose without a destination, it was better than docilely following orders day in and day out. The silence was better too: Hiei could stab whoever was bothering him instead of listen to their lectures. Mukuro matched the Oaf in obnoxiousness.

With nothing but wasteland stretching around him as distraction, Hiei's thoughts ran back to the Forlorn Hope he had stolen so many ages ago.

What had Kurama used the accursed Mirror for? Probably his Human, again, though no one had told Hiei directly. A fat lot of good it did, since she had died all the same in the end. The fox demon had shucked his human body off like an old skin after Shiori's death and followed through with his plan to disappear in the depths of DemonWorld. Kurama beat the Mirror to causing his early death; it was just like the smug bastard to have the last laugh.

Yusuke, however….Brash Yusuke had made the same sacrifice to the Forlorn Hope. Half his life forfeited because at the time he had nothing worth living for; no future to keep. There hadn't even been anything in it for him. How would his children take this cruel little twist? His wife? Koenma would have surely missed this detail in the fine print.

In the middle of a lifeless desert, below a pain-reddened sky, Hiei laughed. It was irony was overwhelming. Yusuke had the luck to be one of the Three Kings, and the misfortune to shoot himself in the foot saving little boys and demons alike.

How did Hiei know this day was the exact day when half of Yusuke Uremeshi's life would end, and – consequently – all of it? He had perused through Koenma's death files for all the humans he knew back before everything started coming undone. He had stolen a look because he knew the good times couldn't last, and after that it was a simple matter of division on the date Koenma had set.

There.

He felt the purest energy signature in DemonWorld spike and vanish even from as far north as Mukuro's lands, and its absence left a brilliant, empty imprint on his mind. Faintly, shadowed by the overwhelming nothingness that pervaded that air, Hiei imagined he could feel panic and grief setting in a few minutes later. Everyone would soon know that Raizen's heir was nothing but a corpse.

Hiei allowed himself a brief moment of envy. The human's life was barely half a century, but Yusuke had left before he could be forgotten. Demons like the Jagan-wielder would live until they had outstayed their welcome, and then die purposeless and forgotten. Hiei was already little more than a shadow and a ragged memory.

The fire demon sighed and used his sword to pull himself upright on the tree limb he had stopped on. Leave it to humans to be remembered and grieved. He was alive, and instinct would keep him clinging to his last breath long after his soul had withered away. Screw mourners and empty wishes.

Hiei walked slowly across a featureless desert, leaving the twisted tree behind him. Memories of Yusuke Uremeshi fell away like dead leaves, left behind like Yukina and Kurama and Kuwabara before them. With each passing year the pile grew larger, and the dark little demon called Hiei was too preoccupied to notice he was leaving pieces of himself behind as well.


End file.
